Lessons from Jack Ma

From his humble roots, Jack Ma rose and became the richest man in China after listing his Alibaba.com in New York Stock Exchange(NYSE) recently. His success attracts analysts and commoners alike, and he's even featured on the main cover in the Forbes magazine.

I respect him not because he is rich, nor because he runs one of the most successful companies in China these days, but because deep in him, there are many underlying values which are so simple,relevant and yet not easy to be executed. These are very traditional Chinese values.

I like these 4 values that he preached to young people:

1. What is failure: Giving up is the greatest failure.
2. What is resilience: Once you have been through hardships, grievances and disappointments, only then will you understand what is resilience.
3. What your duties are: To be more diligent, hardworking, and ambitious than others.
4. Only fools use their mouth to speak. A smart man uses his brain, and a wise man uses his heart.

Jack Ma’s advice to entrepreneurs

1. The opportunities that everyone cannot see are the real opportunities.
2. Always let your employees come to work with a smile.
3. Customers should be number 1, Employees number 2, and then only your Shareholders come at number 3.
4. Adopt and change before any major trends or changes.
5. Forget the money; Forget about earning money.
6. Rather than having small smart tricks to get by, focus on holding on and persevering.
7. Your attitude determines your altitude.

Jack Ma on entrepreneurship

1. A great opportunity is often hard to be explained clearly; things that can be explained clearly are often not the best opportunities.
2. You should find someone who has complementary skills to start a company with. You shouldn’t necessarily look for someone successful. Find the right people, not the best people.
3. The most unreliable thing in this world is human relationships.
4. “Free” is the most expensive word.
5. Today is cruel, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be beautiful.

 Read the entire post on Vulcan Post here.